The best part is that Pandaren have been a part of WoW lore since Warcraft 3. How long ago was that? 9 years ago. NINE, PEOPLE!

Badferret wrote:

Grats to blizzard for getting the Kung Fu Panda license. ;)

I expected a lot of this, but to me, this joke was old before the announcement.

ELewis17 wrote:

jdzappa wrote:

At any rate, it looks like The Old Republic and Guild Wars 2 will be stepping over WOW's corpse after all. But only because Blizzard put a gun to WOW's head and pulled the trigger.

You're either high as a kite, or you have not read anything on the release. This is what the player-base wants. No question.

If there's anything I've learned in years of playing video games, it's that giving the player base what they want isn't always good for the game.

Overall, I'm pretty meh on the expansion. Blizzard seems to be taking a huge step back with the return to the Wrath-style loot pinata, and that's really disappointing. Couple with another 5 level boost, and I can see the leveling game go by in a blink, probably faster than it did this go round, and while I'm probably in the minority here, the last two expansions have had me longing for the leveling curve from Vanilla.

My wife's been giving me a hard time about re-joining WoW, but when I showed the trailer to her and my oldest daughter last night, they both immediately said, "can I make an account and play??"... and combined with the Pokemon-style pet battling, I think Blizzard knows exactly what they're doing, in targeting a younger and less "hardcore" player group.

That said, I really like what I see so far. I'm curious to see how the new talent tree changes play out, but I like that there's a good potential for a heterogeneous build, rather than the almost completely single-spec builds we have now.

My wife's been giving me a hard time about re-joining WoW, but when I showed the trailer to her and my oldest daughter last night, they both immediately said, "can I make an account and play??"... and combined with the Pokemon-style pet battling, I think Blizzard knows exactly what they're doing, in targeting a younger and less "hardcore" player group.

That said, I really like what I see so far. I'm curious to see how the new talent tree changes play out, but I like that there's a good potential for a heterogeneous build, rather than the almost completely single-spec builds we have now.

MUTHA FLIPPIN THIS. My wife. MY WIFE! She hates games and roleplaying and fun (no idea why she chose me) but she saw the trailer and made the same noise she makes when McDreamy and McSteamy get shirtless together. And my kids. They LOVE Kung Fu Panda. This is EXACTLY what they would want. For me, they're like two expansions too late, but it definitely made me think about it...

I don't see how a Kung Fu Panda-themed expansion is going to stop the slide.

You do realize that the Pandaren were first introduced way back in Warcraft 3, right?

Yeah, I thought, "geeze, they really ripped off Kung Fu Panda here", but as it turns out, Blizzard's Pandarens precede KFP by long enough that the game might have been the creative spark for the movie, rather than the other way around.

It's sort of like bashing Warhammer for stealing Blizzard's ideas. Hell, given the size of that universe, maybe martial arts pandas came from way back then.

I think this will be the first expansion I'm not even going to bother with as a tourist. They're pretty obviously just monetizing it now. Blizzard is being Activisioned to death. And their promise of free D3 if you'll sign a service contract.... wow, does that ever smack of desperation.

I think anthropomorphic animals have a bit of leeway with "who did it first"

Malor wrote:

I think this will be the first expansion I'm not even going to bother with as a tourist. They're pretty obviously just monetizing it now. Blizzard is being Activisioned to death. And their promise of free D3 if you'll sign a service contract.... wow, does that ever smack of desperation.

Activision or not, it's a company acting in their best interests. I think Gameguru pointed out a while ago, you can't just assign all the "bad" things to Activision. Of course they want to keep subscribers and get sales of and people playing D3.

I think this will be the first expansion I'm not even going to bother with as a tourist. They're pretty obviously just monetizing it now. Blizzard is being Activisioned to death. And their promise of free D3 if you'll sign a service contract.... wow, does that ever smack of desperation.

The Diablo 3 offer doesn't smack of desperation to me. They know that there will be some crossover between players of both games and that a lot of people will choose to cancel their subscription when Diablo 3 comes out and this seems a very clever way of trying to prevent this.

Once people cancel their subscription they tend to not come back (at least until an expansion) so trying to prevent this from happening seems like something any sensible company would be doing.

I think this will be the first expansion I'm not even going to bother with as a tourist. They're pretty obviously just monetizing it now. Blizzard is being Activisioned to death. And their promise of free D3 if you'll sign a service contract.... wow, does that ever smack of desperation.

The Diablo 3 offer doesn't smack of desperation to me. They know that there will be some crossover between players of both games and that a lot of people will choose to cancel their subscription when Diablo 3 comes out and this seems a very clever way of trying to prevent this.

Once people cancel their subscription they tend to not come back (at least until an expansion) so trying to prevent this from happening seems like something any sensible company would be doing.

It's also a devilishly brilliant move on Blizzard's part, given a certain other big-name MMORPG coming out in the very near future...

[Guild] Player A: I am done with WoW when D3 comes out.
[Guild] Player B: Totally, I am getting burned out.
[Guild] Player C: I AM GONNA GET RICH OFF DIABLO 3!

Now:

[Guild] Player A: Yo did you hear about the Annual Subscription sh*t?
[Guild] Player B: Yea, free D3 and beta, did they release any info on that yet?
[Guild] Player C: F***ING POKEMON B****ES!

I agree, I've talked to some coworkers who told me "I am done with WoW when D3 comes out." This is last nights facebook posts

Player A: Signed up for the 1 year , getting free D3 and Tyrell's mount. "
Player B: When does this offer expire?
Player C: Dunno but I just signed up!
Player D: it takes it in your monthly..you just have to be paying with a credit card

I think this move was genius by Blizzard. I had two of these guys ready to try SWTOR with me when it comes out but now that's out the window. Most people aren't willing to pay 2 mmo subscription fees.

I suspect there are a lot of people who are only going to sub to only one MMO, so making people chose between SWTOR or D3 and WoW seems like a good move to keep the WoW subscriber numbers up. The perception of being an MMO on the devline is probably one that Blizz want to avoid until they have their own alternative ready.

I only played Cata for a couple months before I stopped completely.. I'm generally apathetic to this whole genre as it stands right now so certainly nothing in this expansion would bring me back.. but I don't see anything that looks that outrageous given how mature this game is in its lifecycle.. That Blizzard still has millions of paying subscribers is impressive whatever their inflated numbers might mask. Clearly going into year 8 this is still the most played subscription MMOG and one of the few that has managed to continue to last as a subscription game. I wouldnt be surprised if Blizzards active player base even rivals some of the more popular F2P games (Nexon not withstanding)

I do have an impressive collection of WoW Collectors boxes.. and it will be difficult to avoid habit and buy this one as well.. hmm.. I might just to play through the new content with a Panda Monk...

Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarterDelivering Truth while the 10% deliver lies.

Picked it up for the year. Free Diablo 3? Why not. Maybe it's because I have very rarely taken WoW seriously, but I've been playing the game for years now, and I'm still not tired of it. The trick for me is just enjoy the solo game, join guilds for social reasons, play casual, and just for a few hours maximum each week. I average these days about 2-3 a week and that's worked just fine for me. Sure I miss out on bosses and raids, but who gives a crap? I've never become tired of the game, and when I do I just take a week or a month off.

With that said, my overall interest has declined over time. It's bound to happen, but I've never had a sharp drop to total apathy either.

ALSO: According to WoW's twitter account, if you buy the Diabo 3 collector's edition, you won't be shafted. They have a way to compensate some of the cost towards the WoW annual account offer.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:
Michael wrote:

So what if someone sold a poorly written, erotic version of Grey Goo in a different country? That would be...

Level 3 AbilitiesBlackout Kick
2 Dark Force - Melee range, Instant
Kick with a blast of energy, causing 28 physical damage to an enemy target. If the target is killed by blackout kick, you are returned 1 Dark Force.

Level 5 AbilitiesFlying Serpent Kick
8-40 Yards range, 25 Seconds Cooldown, Instant.
Soar through the air towards a targeted enemy, knocking them down and stunning them for 2 seconds.

Spinning Crane Kick
Instant, 2 Lights and Dark Forces
Requires Stance of the Drunken Ox, Stance of the Fierce Tiger.
You spin while kicking in the air, dealing 23 damage every 1 second to all nearby enemies within 8 yards. Movement speed is reduced by 30%, last 6 seconds.

Level ?? AbilitiesStatue of the Jade Serpent
5 Sec Cast
Summon a statue at the target location. Anytime you deal damage, a nearby friendly target within 20 yards of the statue will be healed. You can have up to 3 Jade Dragon Statues active at a time.

I read that all the old models would be redone and upgraded at some point to bring them up to snuff with the Worgen and now Panda models. Hooboy I remember when Verant tried that in EQ. Oh the forums! But it's sorely needed so good luck.

Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarterDelivering Truth while the 10% deliver lies.

This isn't as exciting to me as the past 3 expansions have been. I'm probably one of the only people who really wants them to explore some more of Outland. Chucking another continent into Azeroth just seems so vanilla after the last few expansions. Plus the talent overhaul seems to be going in a direction I'm not happy with, I really thought they'd nailed it with Cataslysm, and I was hoping that paladins would finally get a rest from relearning the entire class every expansion for once...

Having said all that, I'll be getting this for sure, and I'll almost certainly enjoy it. I guess I'm just on the look out for the next big thing, so I can finally wave goodbye to WoW. It'll be an amicable parting, I don't have the love/hate relationship with WoW a lot of people seem to, but it has been 8 years, and I'm ready to move on. It's just tough when the alternatives are so lackluster!

The pandas had some really cool animations, and the environment is just pretty and peaceful, but it doesnt feel like wow at all... if no one had told me about this expansion before i log on, i wouldnt kno it was wow lol... well aside from the old classes.. but i was playing a monk, which got nothing in common with the old classes so far.. I dunno how I feel about the no auto atk because i was standing aroudn like an idiot when i am out of chi, but I do like the idea of healers with a charge flying kick! Gannon told me when BC came out it didnt feel like wow either playing BE, so we'll see how it plays out... I am def excited, and i totally signed up for the 1 year pass already, so its too late not to like the pandas haha.

It was kinda fun playing the panda monks....the little roll thing they do is kinda nice....it's like a mini blink that you can do more often than mages.

The thing with auto attack is killing me though....some games might not have auto attack and ppl argue it's better that way....but all of WoW's classes have auto attacks and it's just out of place to introduce a class that doesn't have them......I don't like sitting there doing nothing while I wait for light or dark orbs to light up or chi to fill up.

One thing that I love though is that one of my favorite sayings is "you're f^cking up my chi!!!"....especially when Youko is bothering me....so it should flow well with this class XD

Two things about the new 85-90 content which really give me hope are 1)They stated the questing will be less linear and 2)It will be a whole cohesive landmass. I think the 80-85 Cata zones really faltered, the way they were disconnected and randomley scattered lost that feeling of exploring a whole new part of the world, that feeling of progression through areas, and the strict linearity of the questing was really suffocating, not to mention doing it on alts, you were just following the same exact path each time.

After having a weekend to think about it I still don't really like the Pandaren in purely aesthetic terms. But, the environments do look nice and the Monk sounds like an interesting class. Pet battles do nothing for me, maybe it will be a fun diversion. Just don't get that "Wow this is gonna be SO COOL" feeling of previous expansions, but when the game has been around this long I guess that's only natural.

From a purely marketing and research point of view, all the hardened core MMO players burned out on wow will be moving on to TOR and Guild Wars 2 etc. But by introducing Pokemon battles and the Pandaran + monk combo, we're talking about getting a whole new generation of gamers into wow. Both male and female.

Also its important to note, Pokemon might be looked down on by serious gamers but it is a thriving franchise that keeps printing money like Blizzard does every time they release a new color edition.

Also, there are at least 150 pets in game right now (not hunter pets), and they are releasing new wild pets. Almost every single one will have 6 abilities, and I'm sure many will be unique, and does not include master skills which can be earned. And you can level them up to lvl 20? 25?, and the only way to level them up is to do pet battles, 3v3.

This is not some 1/2 assed implementation of a pet battle system. This is serious R&D to recreate and imagine a pet battle system and incorporate it into WOW. For example, I got the original WOW CE. You think the 6 skills for my pet diablo is going to resemble the 6 skills for the Panda pet? What about the creepy crate pet that was released for All Hallow's this year? Again at least a few new and unique skills for that pet.

We are talking serious skill R&D here and each pet introduced from here on out needs to be vetted for skills as well. I can see huge complexity for 3v3 pet battles going forward and its completely separate from the main WOW game. And I would not be surprised if pets themselves have innate abilities, like Diablo is immune to fire or some such, which adds even more complexity. Remember, Pokemon is actually quite complex when you factor in several hundreds of different animals and all with their own unique abilities and weakness.

Next year at Blizzcon, I'm pretty sure there will be a panal of brand new faces that deal only with Pet battles.